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Topic: The "Rapture" (Read 4157 times)

Ok, who here thinks that Jesus in coming to save them before the antichrist comes to be a big meanie? Well i have read that Jesus will not come untill after the antichrist comes. Here...

. If the rapture is not true why do so many people believe it? It is because in the first earth age they were not strong enough to make a stand against Satan and follow God. So in this earth age God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie like the rapture. See Romans 11:7-10 and II Thessalonians 2:10-12 By doing this, God shows His love and mercy for His children. For if they did know the truth, they could run the risk of committing the unforgivable sin.

How will we know when the true Jesus Christ returns? The best way to tell if the true Jesus Christ has returned or if it's just Satan claiming to be Christ is if you still have a flesh body or not. We are told when the true Jesus Christ returns at the last trump, we shall be changed into our spiritual body in the twinkling of an eye. See I Corinthians 15:50-53

What does it mean the Lord will come as a thief in the night? This means that when Jesus Christ returns, many will not be expecting Him because they think that He is already here on earth. But in reality, they have been worshiping Satan who will be claiming that he is Jesus Christ and here to rapture them away.

I'd be very surprised (shocked actually) if you find a single believer in 'the rapture' here. It simply is not an Orthodox idea and has no basis in either Scripture or Holy Tradition. In fact, you'll find no mention of it outside of Protestant circles and even within Protestantism it is neither the mainstream view, nor very old. It dates from the early part of the 19th century and comes from a group known as the Plymouth Brethren.

Your comments on this ludicrous belief are all well and good but somewhat superfluous on an Orthodox Christian discussion forum.

James

Logged

We owe greater gratitude to those who humble us, wrong us, and douse us with venom, than to those who nurse us with honour and sweet words, or feed us with tasty food and confections, for bile is the best medicine for our soul. - Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

QUOTE///Proponents of the doctrine of a pre-Tribulation Rapture claim that it rests on Scripture and has always been a part of Christian teaching. The truth is that it dates from about 1830 and was largely the creation of John Nelson Darby, a one-time Anglican priest and founder of a sect called the Plymouth Brethren. He contributed much to the dispensationalist scheme, and in particular he was the first to include the Rapture among the catalogue of phenomena of the last times. The Rapture’s recent origin is one of the things which should make us skeptical. Neither the Apostles nor the Fathers expounded any such teaching.

Some fathers theorized that Christ would return and make a literal kingdom on earth for a thousand years and then the new heaven and the new earth would be established. This was only a minority view and was later rejected by the Church.

Some fathers theorized that Christ would return and make a literal kingdom on earth for a thousand years and then the new heaven and the new earth would be established. This was only a minority view and was later rejected by the Church.

Sorry, but the 'rupture' theory is just that, a bad theory created in the 1840's from some people that had nothing better to do than twiddle thier thumbs and think of different ways they could twist some scriptures around to meet thier obsession with the end times.

Logged

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."--Mere Christianity

You do realise, don't you, that the idea of the rapture and the idea of a literal thousand year reign of Christ on earth are not the same thing? It's true that they often go together in the belief of Protestant groups, but they really needn't.

The rapture idea means only that Christ will spirit away the true Christians before the tribulation so that they don't need to suffer. Find me a Father who taught this and I'd be seriously surprised. I simply don't see how anyone could read this doctrine out of the Scriptures and it's obviously not part of Holy Tradition.

Even Darby never claimed that he got the rapture theory from Scripture, but rather a direct revelation of God. The millenarian idea, however, could be understood from Scripture, though I find the interpretation completely wrong headed.

James

Logged

We owe greater gratitude to those who humble us, wrong us, and douse us with venom, than to those who nurse us with honour and sweet words, or feed us with tasty food and confections, for bile is the best medicine for our soul. - Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

There is a sharp difference between historical premillenialism and modern dispensationalism. Rapturists use a false interpretation of Matthew 24 - one will be taken and the other left- to support their idea. However, the ones who are taken are those who will receive judgement, not rapture.

There is a sharp difference between historical premillenialism and modern dispensationalism. Rapturists use a false interpretation of Matthew 24 - one will be taken and the other left- to support their idea. However, the ones who are taken are those who will receive judgement, not rapture.

Actually, Mathew 24 has nothing to do with the future. It was a propechy concerning the destruction of the temple in AD 70, thus fullfilling the words of christ when he said "this generation shall not pass" when his disciples asked when the temple was going to be destroyed and when this would take place. In regards to one taken, one left behind that is refering to when the Roman army took thousands of jews away and sold them into slavery. There is a good book called "Last Days Madness" that is really good that explains these things in great detail.

Logged

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."--Mere Christianity

In the Orthodox Study Bible, Matthew 24 is interpreted as referring to the future. In the commentary, "this generation" is explained as the generation of the end times.

Then the Orthodox Study Bible is wrong. In every instance in the NT when Christ said "this generation", he literally meant his generation. Can you show me where it's meant to be some generation in the way off future? It's dumb to assume that after Christ and the disciples just walked out of the temple with his disciples when he just threatened the jews that he was going to level the temple with not one brick left standing and then disciples turned to Jesus and asked when will this take place? Well, it took place in AD 70 when the temple was destroyed exactly within one generation as he said it would. Why should we assume he's talking about something different? There is no spin you can put on the plain reading of the texts and it's meaning.

Logged

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."--Mere Christianity

Matthew 24 is a double prophecy which means that it had a meaning for the immediate future (the destruction of the temple) and one which has a meaning for the distant future (Second Coming). Consider the prophecy of the virgin birth in Isaiah. The Jews at the time did not understand it as a messaianic prophecy because Isaiah was telling a king what he would name his son.

As I understand it, the Gospel has a trinitarian meaning i.e. it talks of historical events, of the future and has a spiritual dimension. History, Prophecy and Spritual Nourishment. The Trinitarian approach safeguards us from a literalist and monotheistic understanding of Scripture.

"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."(Matthew 24:30)

Instead of the Second Coming, Matthew 24:30 can also be understood as the Ascension, which did occur within the generation of the Apostles. Campare this verse with Daniel 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

58. Rapture means the total elevation of the soul's powers towards the majesty of divine glory, disclosed as an undivided unity. Or again rapture is a pure and all-embracing ascent towards the limitless power that dwells in light. Ecstasy is not only the heavenward ravishing of the soul's powers; it is also complete transcendence of the sense-world itself. Intense longing for God - there are two forms of it - is a spiritual intoxication that arouses our desire. 59. As just remarked, there are two main forms of ecstatic longing for God: one within the heart and the other an enravishment taking one beyond oneself. The first pertains to those who are still in the process of achieving illumination, the second to those perfected in love. Both, acting on the intellect, transport it beyond the sense-world. Such longing for the divine is truly a spiritual intoxication, impelling natural thoughts towards higher states and detaching the senses from their involvement with visible things. (-St. Gregory of Sinai)

and,

When a man passes from the life of ascetic practice to the stage of spiritual knowledge, he is absent from the flesh (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8 ). Caught up as on clouds by the more lofty conceptual images into the translucent air of mystical contemplation, he is able to ‘be with the Lord for ever’ (1 Thess. 4:17). A man ‘is absent from the Lord’ (2 Cor. 5:6) if he is not yet able to contemplate his conceptual images of things with a pure intellect free from the operations of the senses (so far as this is possible), and if he cannot yet embrace the knowledge of the Lord in its true simplicity, without the help of symbols. (- St. Maximus)

and,

Do not try to embark on the higher forms of contemplation before you have achieved complete dispassion, and do not pursue what lies as yet beyond your reach. If your wish is to become a theologian and a contemplative, ascend by the path of ascetic practice and through self-purification acquire what is pure. Do not pursue theology beyond the limits of your present state of development: it is wrong for us who are still drinking the milk of the virtues to attempt to soar to the heights of theology, and if we do so we will flounder like fledglings, however great the longing roused within us by the honey of spiritual knowledge. But, once purified by self-restraint and tears, we will be lifted up from the earth like Elijah or Habakkuk (cf. 2 Kgs. 2:11; Bel and Dr., verses 36-39), anticipating the moment when we will be caught up into the clouds (cf. 1 Thess. 4:17); and transported beyond the world of the senses by undistracted prayer, pure and contemplative, we may then in our search for God touch the fringe of theology. (- St. Theognostos)